Burmese units of measurement
The traditional Burmese units of measurement are still in everyday use in Burma. According to the CIA Factbook, Burma is one of three countries that have not adopted the International System of Units (SI) metric system as their official system of weights and measures.[1] However, in June 2011, the Burmese government's Ministry of Commerce began discussing proposals to reform the measurement system in Burma and adopt the metric system used by most of its trading partners.[2]
Most Burmese units are used solely in the nation but Burmese government web pages in English use imperial and metric units. For instance, the Ministry of Agriculture uses acres for land areas.[3] The Ministry of Construction uses miles to describe the length of roads,[4] and square feet for the size of housing constructed[5] but square kilometres for the total land area of new town developments in Yangon City.[6] Also, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs uses kilometres (with mile equivalents in parentheses) to describe the dimensions of the country.[7]
Contents |
Length [edit]
| Unit | Metric | Imperial/US | Ratio to previous |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burmese | Romanized | |||
| ဆံခြည် | sanchi | 79.375 µm | 3⅛ thou/mil | |
| နှမ်း | hnan | 0.79375 mm | 31¼ thou/mil | 10 |
| မုယော | mayaw | 4.7625 mm | 3⁄16 in | 6 |
| လက်သစ် | let thit | 1.905 cm | ¾ in | 4 |
| မိုက် | maik | 15.24 cm | 6 in | 8 |
| ထွာ | htwa | 22.86 cm | 9 in | 1.5 |
| တောင် | taung | 45.72 cm | 1½ ft; one cubit | 2 |
| လံ | lan | 1.8288 m | 6 ft | 4 |
| တာ | ta | 3.2004 m | 10½ ft | 1.75 |
| ဥသဘ | out-thaba (from Pali usaba) |
64.008 m | 70 yd | 20 |
| ကောသ | kawtha (from Pali kosa) |
1.28016 km | 0.795455 mi | 20 |
| ဂါဝုတ် | ga-wout (from Pali gavuta) |
5.12064 km | 3.18182 mi; about one league | 4 |
| ယူဇနာ | yuzana (from Pali yojana) |
20.4826 km | 12.7273 mi | 4 |
Mass [edit]
| Unit | Metric | Imperial/US | Ratio to previous |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burmese | Romanized | |||
| ရွေးလေး | yway lay | 136.078 mg | 2.1 grain | |
| ရွေးကြီး | yway gyi | 272.155 mg | 4.2 grain | 2 |
| ပဲသား | petha | 1.02058 g | 15.75 grain | 3.75 |
| မူးသား | mutha | 2.04117 g | 31.5 grain | 2 |
| မတ်သား | mattha | 4.08233 g | 63 grain | 2 |
| ငါးမူးသား | nga mutha[N 1] | 8.16466 g | 0.288 oz | 2 |
| ကျပ်သား | kyattha[N 2] | 16.3293 g | 0.576 oz | 2 |
| အဝက်သား | awettha | 204.117 g | 7.2 oz | 12.5 |
| အစိတ်သား | aseittha | 408.233 g | 14.4 oz | 2 |
| ငါးဆယ်သား | ngase tha | 816.466 g | 1.8 lb | 2 |
| ပိဿာ | peittha[N 3] | 1.63293 kg | 3.6 lb | 2 |
| အချိန်တစ်ရာ | achein taya | 163.293 kg | 360 lb | 100 |
- ^ Literally "five mutha", but in fact it is only four.
- ^ Traditionally known as a tical in English.
- ^ Traditionally known as a viss in English.
Volume [edit]
| Unit | Metric | Imperial | US | Ratio to previous |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burmese | Romanized | ||||
| လမြူ | la myu | 79.9118 ml | 213⁄16 fl oz | 2.70214 fl oz | |
| လမျက် | la myet | 159.824 ml | 5⅝ fl oz | 5.40428 fl oz | 2 |
| လမယ် | la me | 319.647 ml | 11¼ fl oz | 10.8086 fl oz | 2 |
| စလယ် | sa le | 639.294 ml | 1⅛ pints | 1.35107 pints | 2 |
| ခွက် | hkwet | 1.27859 l | 1⅛ qt | 1.35107 qt | 2 |
| ပြည် | pyi | 2.55718 l | 2¼ qt | 2.70214 qt | 2 |
| စိတ် | seit | 10.2287 l | 2¼ gallons/ 1⅛ pecks |
2.70214 gallons/ 1.16106 pecks |
4 |
| ခွဲ | hkwe | 20.4574 l | 4½ gallons/ 2¼ pecks |
5.40428 gallons/ 2.32213 pecks |
2 |
| တင်း | tin | 40.9148 l | 9 gallons/ 1⅛ bushels |
10.8086 gallons/ 1.16107 bushels |
2 |
Money [edit]
| Unit | Equivalent to | |
|---|---|---|
| Romanized | Burmese | |
| 1 pya | ပြား | |
| 1 mat | မတ် | 25 pya |
| 5 mu | ငါးမူး | 2 mat |
| 1 kyat | ကျပ် | 10 mu |
References [edit]
- "Myanmar, Metric and British equivalents in weights & measures". Myanmar–English Dictionary. Department of the Myanmar Language Commission, Ministry of Education, Union of Myanmar.
- Karen Human Rights Group
- Human Rights Yearbook 1999-2000: Burma
- ^ "The World Factbook, Appendix G: Weights and Measures". Web Pages. Central Intelligence Agency. 2010. Retrieved 10 May 2010.
- ^ Ko Ko Gyi (July 18 - 24, 2011). "Ditch the viss, govt urges traders". Retrieved 20 July 2011.
- ^ "Ministry of Agriculture and Information". Web Page. Myanmar Agriculture. 2009-2010. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
- ^ "Public Works, Fields Of Activities". Web Page. Ministry Of Construction. 2006. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
- ^ "Housing Development". web page. Ministry Of Construction. 2006. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
- ^ "Housing Development". web page. Ministry Of Construction. 2006. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
- ^ "About Myanmar : Geography". web page. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Myanmar. 2009. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
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